Old Saint Nicholas lives in an orbital fortress and uses child labor to keep costs low (the elves had a union). However, this Christmas might not be so jolly. A devil named Pitch is out to cause mischief and ruin everything.

You can't mention everything about this movie, but one thing that struck me is the mechanical cat that takes off like a greyhound-racing bunny after Dante decides to chase it instead of Santa -- Santa also pulls some pretty incredible faces throughout the movie -- faces that have nothing whatever to do with anything happening onscreen. I saw this several times as a very young -- 5 or 6 or 7 year old -- child in Kilmarnock, Virginia, as the Fairfax theatre would run it every Christmas as a kiddie matinee. The whole theatre would erupt in screams when Pitch got the cannon dart in his behind. Ass humour probably predates Astrolopithecus. I recall too that over the years, the print that the theatre used got greener and greener as the colour was bleached out of it, until it started to resemble a green-tinted black & white film with yellow scratches.Just a plain weird picture . . .peter johnson/denny crane

I have this on DVD, and it's one of my favorite holiday films. I only wish the uncut version was available on home video. The current DVD release omits the scenes of the damned souls being led off to Hell, something I believe every family film needs.

EDIT By Andrew:That is the same version I link to in the review and also the DVD I used to write the review. However, it does not include the scene with the damned souls being led to Hell like "Mr. Director" mentions above. I have never seen that scene.

Saw the uncut spanish version on youtube it includes the damned souls being led to hell bit as well as different opening title screen also santa doesn't laugh as much in the spanish version and the narrator doesn't narrated as much, but still has that creepy feel to it anyway. It just doesn't sound as badly dubbed as the english version

How could you give this horrible piece of turd four slimes?? It deserves a skull, or at least ONE slime! I couldn't even sit through the MST3K version! I can't believe you could sit through the non-riffed version. You're a braver man than I thought.